Africa’s schools are under pressure, Psychosocial support is no longer optional

Across Africa, education is often framed as the continent’s most powerful lever for development.

It is positioned as the pathway out of poverty, the foundation of economic growth and the engine of social mobility.

But this narrative assumes that schools are functioning as they should.

In reality, many are not.

South Africa provides a stark example, but it is not an isolated case. Across the continent, school systems are operating under sustained pressure from overlapping structural challenges: violence, trauma, poverty, overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and failing infrastructure. These are not temporary disruptions. They are systemic conditions.

As Dr Marelize Vergottini, senior lecturer in Social Work at the North-West University (NWU) in South Africa, makes clear, the scale of the crisis is already entrenched.

“Across South Africa, an overwhelming number of recent reports show that learners and teachers are being failed by systemic collapse. These failures directly undermine learners’ development, safety, academic performance and long-term potential, while leaving teachers burnt out. These realities strengthen the case for the urgent recognition of School Social Work as a specialised field and for the immediate deployment of these practitioners in schools.”

What is unfolding is not simply an education problem. It is a systems failure.

In many African contexts, schools are expected to function as places of learning, social support, nutrition, protection and stability, often without the resources required to fulfil any of these roles effectively. When one part of the system weakens, the others follow.

The consequences are already visible.

School feeding programmes, a critical safety net across several African countries, are increasingly strained. In South Africa alone, disruptions to the National School Nutrition Programme have left millions of learners without reliable access to meals. Statistics South Africa confirms that hunger remains a daily reality for 16.3% of children. This is not an isolated statistic; it reflects a broader continental challenge. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide, more than one in five people in Africa, over 300 million individuals, face hunger. UNICEF further reports that an estimated 64 million children under the age of five in Africa, roughly one in three, experience severe food poverty. Even where progress has been made, with school feeding programmes reaching tens of millions of children across sub-Saharan Africa, large numbers still remain excluded from these safety nets. Food insecurity is therefore not a peripheral issue; it is a defining constraint on educational outcomes across the continent.

At the same time, the pressure on educators is intensifying.

Teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms and administrative burdens are not unique to South Africa. Across Africa, educators are being asked to do more with less, often in environments that are emotionally and physically demanding. Burnout is no longer an exception. It is becoming the norm.

This has direct implications for the classroom.

In environments marked by poverty and instability, schools are no longer guaranteed safe spaces. Incidents of school-based violence are rising in many regions, while learners are increasingly exposed to trauma both inside and outside the classroom. The impact of this cannot be overstated.

Trauma and chronic stress fundamentally alter how children learn.

When learners are hungry, unsafe or emotionally distressed, cognitive development is compromised. Attention, memory and problem-solving ability decline. The classroom may still exist, but the conditions required for learning do not.

In South Africa, six out of every ten children experience trauma during childhood, while more than 13 million live in poverty. Across the continent, similar patterns emerge, even if the exact figures differ. The implication is the same: educational systems are expected to deliver outcomes in environments that actively undermine learning.

Taken together, these pressures define a system under sustained strain.

Hunger, violence, trauma, teacher shortages, overcrowding and poor infrastructure do not operate in isolation. They reinforce one another. Without intervention, they entrench inequality and limit long-term development outcomes at both national and continental levels.

The response, however, has not matched the scale of the problem.

In South Africa, the formal recognition of school social work as a professional specialisation has been delayed for years. Draft regulations were released for public comment in 2020, yet finalisation remains outstanding. This kind of administrative stagnation is not unique. Across Africa, policy responses often lag behind the realities on the ground, leaving critical gaps in support systems.

This is where the conversation needs to shift.

If schools are expected to operate as stabilising institutions within unstable environments, then psychosocial support cannot be treated as an optional add-on. It must be built into the system.

School social workers are not a luxury. They are a structural necessity.

They are equipped to address the very challenges that are undermining education systems: trauma, family instability, mental health, abuse, neglect and the broader social conditions that affect learning. Without this layer of support, schools are being asked to solve problems they are not designed to manage.

Dr Vergottini’s position is clear.

“Every school should have a school social worker as part of its staff – this is a necessity, not an ‘extra’.”

This is not simply a South African argument. It is an African one.

If the continent is serious about education as a driver of development, then it must confront the conditions under which learning takes place. Infrastructure matters. Curriculum matters. Teachers matter.

But without addressing the social and psychological realities facing learners, these interventions will always fall short.

The question is no longer whether African school systems are under pressure.

The question is whether the response will match the scale of the crisis.

Sent-in by: North-West University • distributions@m.mediaportal.co.za

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